With Almost 10% Of New gTLD Registrations In Upcoming Delete Status; The Peak Of 28.8M May Stand Until .Web

According to ntldstats.com almost 10% of all registered new gTLD domain names are in upcoming delete status; meaning for at least a while new G’s domain name may have peaked out.

On March 24, 2017 the number of new gTLD domain registrations sat at 28,854,146.

As of yesterday the number is 28,818,819.

However the number of new gTLD’s in “upcoming delete” status is 2,738,536 which 9.50% of the number of new gTLD registrations.

Once those domains delete through the amount of new gTLD’s should be around 26 Million.

This week the largest operator of new gTLD extension Donuts announced they were going for the 1st time discount the first year cost of registrations of nearly all of its domains.

Still looming large over the new gTLD registration numbers is the anniversary of the $.01 .XYZ sale which was followed by domain sales as low as $.02 which occurred at the beginning of June 2016 and prices remained for the entire month of June at $.22 at many registrars.

Bottom line the 28.8 Million domain mark in new gTLD domain registrations looks like a peak number in my opinion in new gTLD domain registrations for the foreseeable future.

The Donuts discount may help offset some of the losses in total new gTLD domain registrations but the next big move up again IMHO will not occur until .web is released and of course that will depend on pricing, marketing and availability of premiums the in extension.

About Michael Berkens

Michael Berkens, Esq. is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of TheDomains.com. Michael is also the co-founder of Worldwide Media Inc. which sold around 70K domain to Godaddy.com in December 2015 and now owns around 8K domain names . Michael was also one of the 5 Judges selected for the the Verisign 30th Anniversary .Com contest.

Comments

It’s VERY interesting to note that in the UPCOMING DELETE file(s) these are the granular details:

725,908 dot-XYZ names (11%)

514,867 dot-TOP names (11%)

86,066 dot-CLUB names (10%)

181,786 dot-WIN names (15%)

48,404 dot-SITE names (7%)

30,302 dot-ONLINE names (4%)

184,305 dot-BID names (30% ! )

…and ONLY 20 (!) dot-VIP names (0%) — which gives you the proper context to separate the wheat from the chaff.

M+M never played the ‘give away’ game, because with dot-VIP they didn’t have to. There was, and will be, very legitimate demand for this extension, which will only increase once real businesses start to use dot-VIP, which in the luxury niches they will do.

Snoopy – rather than speculate maybe you should read what the VIP registry posts in its audited financials. This is one of the only public companies where you can get a read on what they are doing. From the CEO’s statement:

“As previously reported, its launch has been nothing short of exceptional representing the most successful launch of any new gTLD to date, with approximately 405,000 registrations and $5.5 million of billings achieved in the first 21 days…”

So yes a big spike in their registrations but if they were giving these away for pennies then where did that $5.5 mil come from?

I think the new gTLD registries and registers should have sold all “premium” names at the same price as any name.

Domain investors are tireless hustlers. They would buy up premiums (making more registrations than pricing them at $$thousands wold) and they would be working the phones to their contacts promoting – with a personal one on one spiel – their particular premium gTLD. Incidentally they would be promoting the who new extension. They would be meeting objections of potential buyers (“no one has ever done this before, com is safer”). They would be educating people in the domain market about the new extensions. They would apply salesmanship, something the new registries are lacking.

One of the biggest buyers of ‘premium’ new gTLD domain names — great ‘across the dot’ names — was Michael Berkens himself. He’s got hundreds of them even after selling off his huge portfolio for millions of dollars. I do not see Mr. Berkens working the phones every day to merchandize his inventory of new gTLDs to skeptical buyers. It’s simply a sit back and wait strategy. If there will ever be any demand for these new gTLDs from well-heeled end users, he is sitting pretty. If there never will be any demand for these things, he’s going to lose some money; but, he can afford to do so.

Is .web really that interesting? With the same lack of price protection? Sure, it’s good for some keywords, and no doubt there may be a few good $xx,xxx sales, even some $xxx,xxx, but overall who cares that much? And that’s if the pricing is agreeable vs. what it could easily be.